Executives from the hotel,
cruise, tours, retail, OTA and destination marketing sectors talk about
their assumptions and plans for the year ahead. The interviews
were conducted by Travel Weekly editor in chief and senior vice
president Arnie Weissmann.
Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, President and CEO, Celebrity Cruises
The economy of the United States, where Celebrity sources the majority of our guests, is very positive. There's a lot of consumer confidence, even more so since the recent tax bill was passed.
The U.K. is our second-largest sourcing market. It slowed down a little bit after [the Brexit vote in 2016], but in '17, the U.K. was terrific. All indications are that '18 will be even better. Australia is our third-largest market. They love Celebrity, and we expect to source even more guests there [in 2018]. Its economic growth has been quite impressive over the last couple of years, and we do not see that slowing down.
We see other economies around the world stabilizing, which gives us optimism. The indicators lead us to remain very positive, and we should have a structure in place to minimize the impact of economic uncertainties and unforeseen circumstances, should they arise.
2017 was our best year ever for [sailings in] Europe. There is still a lot of demand, and all indications are that '18 will follow suit.
The Caribbean is recovering nicely. There is a perception that the Caribbean as a whole was greatly affected by the hurricanes, when in fact only a handful of more than 50 islands were impacted. We're not only returning to [ports that were affected], we're also operating shore excursions again. I'm looking at the business every day, and it's getting better and better. We're seeing a nice rebound in the Caribbean for Q1.
Cruising as a whole is robust and thriving. I see new capacity coming on in '18, and the most capacity that the industry has ever taken in one year is coming in '19.
You know, we have historically shown that when things happen that are beyond our control, like the hurricanes, we're able to recover rapidly. Because we have ships all over the world, and because we depend on different markets, because we can move our assets, we can make sure people don't miss their vacation.
Cruising as a whole is robust and thriving. I see new capacity coming on in '18, and the most capacity that the industry has ever taken in one year is coming in '19. That's reflective of a tremendous amount of optimism in the industry. It's attracting new-to-cruise, which is critically important for all of us.
We're introducing the Edge in 2018; it will debut in the United States. That's the biggest thing that this brand has happening in 2018. It's our first ship in six years, since the Celebrity Reflection.
The reaction to Edge has been phenomenal. We're very excited that Malala [Yousafzai, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate] will be the godmother that's a really, really, really big deal for Celebrity, and it has built a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm around the brand globally.
The second-most impactful thing for 2018 is the most radical change in deployments the brand has seen in over 10 years, and these changes will continue into 2019. Iceland, short cruises in the Mediterranean, the spice route out of Abu Dhabi. We've changed the ship sailing out of the U.K. for the first time in eight years, and ships sailing in South America.
All research shows that the No. 1 driver for people selecting a vacation is where they want to go. And then the second thing, what experiences will they have when they get there?
We very closely watch where people from our four primary source markets the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia want to go, and that determines how we schedule our deployments. For example, our cruises out of Abu Dhabi included quite a few ports of call, but when we focused on the spice route, we found those sailings sell significantly better. So now the majority of our cruises out of Abu Dhabi are all about the spice route.
That's where people really want to go. And cruising is the most wonderful way to see it